As we celebrate Barry Larkin’s entry to the hallowed Hall (even though it took three stupid years) I thought we should take a look at those who didn’t quite make it out of Overlook Hotel, the ones who will probably be there a while.

Jack Torrance:Do you have the slightest idea what a moral and ethical principle is? Do you?

I can’t out think a potato, but I know this: Piazza, Kent, Bagwell and Big Mac aren’t getting in. EVER. And I don’t think I have to explain why. But I digress…

Little pigs, little pigs, let me come in. Not by the hair of your chiny-chin-chin? Well then I’ll huff and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house in. [Axes the door]

From one Jack to another… of course, Allen’s Jack Morris slipped through the cracks again. I feel for the kid (Allen), but I personally believe Jack will be dead before he leaves the snowy mountaintop of baseball’s purgatory labyrinth.

God, I’d give anything for a drink. I’d give my god-damned soul for just a glass of beer.

Good Luck, Lenny Dykstra… maybe next year… yeesh. And maybe stop talking for a while.

The Hall of Fame, PEDs and the suggested fondness of Phil Rogers is all it takes to get Jeff and Johanna attempting to kill each other. Allen probably wished at least one of them would have succeeded… but you’ll have to decide for yourself as the fellas discuss all things controversial and racy (almost like ‘sexy’ but less sexual). Keith Hernandez gets a mention. And the Kirk Gibson story… well ya need to just hear it… all to make you Sir or Madame Smilesalot!

*Special thanks to our PodMaster Keith Carmack. You can experience Keith’s wicked podcast and subsequent film projects at Undercard Films. Keith is a hot topic right now! Not only is he filming that cool baseball doc, but now he’s got some commercial gigs from the Undercast, so go check it out!

To be honest, I’m so over it — all of it… the steroids, the scandals, the lying, the cover-ups, the BALCOs, the blue sweaters. Yes, there comes a time when even extreme baseball purists like myself have no choice but to let…

…go.

Because baseball’s numbers will never be the same. Never. Long gone are the days when a digit might suggest greatness. The hallowed marks of achievement died sometime in the late 80s, when a clubhouse party at the Coliseum consisted of needles, juice and dudes gettin’ jacked. They killed it — they murdered the prestige. It’s all dead now. The numbers will never be as important as they were before PEDs, before Barry, before A-Rod.

I’ve finally come to terms with that.

And I’m also happy to say that the desacrilization of baseball’s numbers won’t kill the game.

I used to think it would.

It hasn’t.

And it won’t.

Which is exactly why baseball is the grandest game on the planet. It has withstood wars, betting scandals, collusion, labor disputes. Its integrity has been challenged. Its image has been smeared. On many occasions, it has even been left for dead.

But it always comes back to life. And it comes back to life bigger, better, stronger.

Hank Aaron. 755.

Roger Maris. 61.

Those are the ones we choose — collectively, as a people, as a community — those are the ones we’ll remember.

The other numbers? I couldn’t tell you how many homeruns Barry Bonds hit in his career. I couldn’t tell you because I don’t care. The public doesn’t care. We don’t care.

And that’s a beautiful sign that baseball has moved on, beyond the numbers; because, let’s face it: sometimes, you just have to move on.

In our case, we are all very lucky, because we get to move on together.

I’m right on that, Mike. Just don’t hate me ‘cuz of it.

Peace,

Jeff

***SEND US YOUR FILIBUSTERS****

Something on your mind? Want to see Jeff and Al sweat (separately, not together, eww)? Think you got a real stumper? Send us your Filibuster question(s) by commenting or emailing them to us at kraulung@gmail.com.

***Videos of Al in a speedo, dry humpin’ reporters at Hedonism II also welcome.

The English language is such that certain phrases, through overuse, become cliches because they tend to contain some inherent truth, some life-lesson validity, something worth paying attention to. That’s why when Momma says “honesty is the best policy”, you can be pretty sure that indeed, telling the truth is an excellent formula for leading a controversy-free life.

But this is US America, and in US American politics, the reverse seems to be most popular among the entitled electorate. I mean, how else can we explain the pure idiocy that runs rampant among big-headed suits who think they can get away with chasing skirts, hooking up in airport restrooms and misappropriating federal funds, without someone figuring it out, eventually?

This is the INFORMATION AGE, people. Technocracy trumps everything. Go ahead and lie to my face. No, really. Do it. Just know that I can uncover your lies and ruin your reputation with just a few simple finger strokes on my smartphone.

Yeah, my phone is smart, dude; much smarter than US Senate candidate Mark Kirk (R-IL), who once challenged on his myriad military record embellishments, is finally starting to remember what actually happened.

Yeah, he said he fought in Operation Desert Storm. That’s a lie.

Yeah, he said he served in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Uh… yeah, that’s a lie.

And… yeah, Kirk also said he won the Navy’s award for Intelligence Officer of the Year. Yep. You guessed it. That’s a lie, too.

Of course, Congressman Kirk is admitting to all this stuff now, because he’s being called out on it by the press — y’know, people with a lot of access to actual information. The irony here is that now Kirk — who based on character alone was an excellent candidate to defeat mafia-tied Democrat Alexi Giannoulias in the Illinois US Senate seat race — now appears less appealing to the public than his allegedly corrupt opponent.

This, dear readers, is just further proof that baseball is the game above all games. We are adamantly vitriolic towards those baseball entities who lie about their past (Tim Johnson, Mark McGwire and Pete Rose come to mind initially), but in the political world, we’ve come to expect such shenanigans and are surprised by (or at least suspicious of) those who appear squeaky clean.

One thing is for certain: Kirk ain’t gettin’ my vote. And neither is Alexi. Yep, I feel another Frank Thomas write-in campaign might be necessary…

Records are a huge part of baseball. When a player comes along and makes an all out assault on a record previously though impregnable, we all take notice. Did anyone 20 years ago think that Gehrig’s consecutive game streak would ever be broken? But then along comes Ripken. Same thing the summer of ’98 when Sosa and McGwire went back and forth on their way to shattering Maris’ record.

Sometimes, though, I prefer just focusing on the record makers instead of the record breakers. Take a look and I think you’ll agree.

Is baseball becoming a small man’s game? Frank Thomas is retired,
Jermaine Dye can’t find a new home. Even Ryan Howard didn’t seem to be
quite the same dynamo last season as he was the year before. Joe
Mauer and Albert Pujols, while not necessarily small, definitely
aren’t monsters like McGwire and Bonds. And let’s not forget Dustin
Pedroia’s MVP win from a year ago. With all the focus on multi-tooled
players, is there still a place for a big man with a big stick?

-Levi J.Peru, IN____________________________________

Believe me, dear readers, when I put an entire year’s salary on the table and bet on the fact that from now until the end of time, in this grand game of ours there will always be a place for a big man with a big stick.

(That’s what she said.)

That and I will obviously continue to have the self-restraint of a 14 year old.

But that doesn’t matter.

Sure, the game changes. It morphs to suit the times, needs. In the nineteen-aughts the emphasis was on the fundamentals — moving the runner over, taking the ball the other way, sliding cleats up. The Ruthian era saw the longball gain importance. The 60s saw pitching dominate. The game of the 80s stressed the need for speed. The steroid era killed all of that, making it easy for old, overweight has-beens to resuscitate their careers while inflating the record books at the same time, thus exaggerating the homerun to cult status.

And now, after all of that, indeed we are seeing another theme take form and that theme is: athleticism. Five tooled players are the hottest commodity. Weight consciousness abounds. The current goal is to be well-rounded and excel at every part of the job. The more a player can do, the more valuable he becomes and we are experiencing a real shift in the athletic zeitgeist of Major League Baseball.

What a wonderful thing!

Instead of waiting for the juiced-up meat-head to play the 3-run homer waiting game, now we get to see hitters expand the strike zone and hit to all fields. The running game is in renaissance and we get to experience the art of the steal, which in my opinion, is one of the most beautiful facets of any baseball game. And now managers manage more: hit and runs, double steals, sacrifice bunts. They’re all results from this new found shift towards athleticism.

Baseball is rewarding itself with pure, stealth athletes.

Yet fear not, homer lovers, for the game will always need its big men. The premier archetype, George Herman Ruth, made baseball what it is today; and without that powerful mystique and consistent threat from the “slugger”, baseball would not remain as our US American pastime.

So while the bones of the league may shift more towards athleticism and overall skill, I assure you that there will always be room for Dave Kingman and Frank Thomas and Ryan Howard.

Like they say all over the internets, chicks certainly do dig the long ball.

And contrary to everything you know, chicks run the universe.

Don’t hate me. ‘Cuz I’m right.

Peace,

Jeff

***SEND US YOUR FILIBUSTERS****

Something on your mind? Want to see Jeff and Al sweat (separately, not together, eww)? Think you got a real stumper? Send us your Filibuster question(s) by commenting or emailing them to us at kraulung@gmail.com.

Tip back that beer, rip off those clothes and go runnin’ through the streets, dear readers! The Winter Olympics are here!

Yes.

That was a lame attempt at fake excitement for an entire world of sports I could care less about it. At least I know I’m not alone. In fact, a very tiny minority of US Americans actually know anything about ice dancing, mogul jumping and figure skater beating (see Tonya Harding meets Nancy Kerrigan circa 1994).

Even NBC has a pretty good idea that the next two weeks are gonna just plain suck, which is why whoever inked Bob Costas to lead that whole Olympic thing ought to get a raise.

You have heard me rave about Costas before, so I won’t bore you with any more bromantic praises for my mental doppelganger (at least, not now anyway); but I would like to present just one example of why Bob Costas is the bomb.

We all saw Costas buzz McGwire and stick handle Dubya, but have you ever seen him prod a foreigner towards the Dark Side? Then you will enjoy this:

Ichiro is, of course, hilarious in this clip, but Costas’ body blasting reaction at the 25-second mark is just priceless.

This has been a week of upheaval in both the physical and existential sense of the word. We continue to be bombarded by images of Haiti and even today a new quake brought new fear. And in the US, both minor and major tremors shook us as McGwire admitted what we had always suspected and the Democrats lost what was supposed to be a sure thing.

In times of upheaval people search for solidity, for something they can cling to as their world is dashed to pieces. For Haitians this is an ongoing search as even their government and their public services have fallen apart. And for baseball fans, even though we knew what McGwire was up to, we go back to the basics and try to rediscover again why we love this game.

For the Democrats, they are in much the same spot as the Haitians. I remember standing on the lawn between the capitol and the Washington Monument a year ago as President Obama gave his historic inauguration speech. But a year later his star power has faded to the point that a virtual unknown was able to take the seat held by Ted Kennedy, the Liberal Lion, for nearly the past five decades.

The real question before all of us is what happens next? Is it possible for Haitians to go back to living a normal existence when even the ground betrays them? Can we trust any of our baseball heroes anymore or do we have to assume that they are all lying? And does the promise of a universal health care system fade away for another 20 years until we once again realize how broken and rigged the current system is?

Upheaval forces us to answer difficult questions. And whether major or minor, these answers take time. Me, I’m a realist and always have been. I expect people to take the easy route. In another two weeks, Haiti will disappear from the news and we won’t hear about it again until the next time a disaster strikes. Despite the nearly universally accepted realization that health care is broken, our leaders will shy away from making us taste the bitter medicine and unfortunate people (who, luckily for the politicians, don’t tend to vote) will continue to fall through the cracks. And Mark McGwire, a self-confessed liar and cheater, will continue to make an exorbitant salary as a hitting coach while Pete Rose is banned from baseball. That, my friends, is reality.

In important news that has come out this week not involving Mark McGwire (Really? Steroids? Huh, I never would have guessed), apparently Ryan Howard may be the most healthy player in baseball. Don’t believe me? Well, how about the BBC?

There’s only one major downside (as opposed to backside) to this. Now, instead of picturing this like the article asks you to do:

“Yeah, I take Viagra, but just to stay healthy. It doesn’t help me bang hot chicks for hours and hours and hours at a time! ARRRRRGH!”

Other Crap:

My duplicitous and oft abrasive colleague, Mr. Allen Krause, has been busy conjuring up all sorts of facetious baseball scenarios, one of which embraces the Selig-spawned, Selig-spun “world” World Series, proposing to pit the Major League Baseball champion against the… the… Japanese baseball… league champion? What?

First of all, this is a Bud Selig ploy — a major league trick to make you think he’s actually working towards the betterment of the game. Preposterous! The World Series is called the friggin’ World Series because it boasts the two best baseball teams in the WORLD. No Japanese champion can hang with the MLB champion. If they could, then all those Japanese players would already be playing in the MAJOR LEAGUES!

Ah, such treachery. It saddens me to see Mr. Krause, someone so smart and so spry, take such a gigantic dip into the crazy-pool. But wait. Yes… it gets worse…

Some More Crap:

…Because somehow Mr. Krause got it in his head that once Albert Pujols’ contract is up with the Cardinals in 2011, that the perennial MVP candidate will be out to find a new, more financially sexy organization to call his home. Mr. Krause even mentioned the possibility of seeing A.P. wearing an old English “D” across his chest!!!

Total f***ing horse****.

Sorry. Had to go there. Ahem…

Like the Tigers always have Ty Cobb, so too will the Cardinals always have Albert Pujols.

Don’t worry, Al… at least you will always have the image of Alan Trammell in a Tigers uni, forever.

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